Daughter Of Australian Salvation Army Leader Receives McCartney Tickets Intended For Homeless

By: Christopher Feery | May 10, 2018

A Paul McCartney concert is always a hot ticket, as the 75-year-old former Beatle still knows how to put on quite a show. Interest was pretty high for a recent show in Australia, but one longtime local Beatles fan stepped up to the plate to do something awesome with some tickets that he had.

Chris McDonald would go ahead and donate seven tickets to the Salvation Army in Australia, and he intended for them to go to the homeless. Five of them would be used for just that, but two of them would wind up being used by the daughter of organization head Brendan Nottle.

As Fox News shares, the matter went public and became quite the controversy in the local media, but Nottle insists there’s nothing to see here. He explains that two of the tickets were returned shortly before the show, and a manager made the decision to give the tickets to his daughter, Ash.

“At the last minute, two tickets were returned and [a manager] made the decision to give them to my daughter,” he explained. “It had absolutely had nothing to do with me.”

Taken at face value, his explanation makes sense. Perhaps the manager was trying to curry favor with Nottle in some way. Regardless, Notytle’s explanation quickly went off the rails when he started throwing shade at the person that made the donation.

“When you’re working with homeless people, to be blunt, do homeless people need tickets to Paul McCartney or do they need a roof over their head?” Nottle asked. “We are not Ticketmaster, we are not concert promoters, we don’t do that stuff and we get it wrong sometimes, you know.”

Alright then. So he finds himself with a red face over a situation that makes the organization he’s responsible for look horrible, and he feels it makes sense to insult a man that made a touching gesture? That’s a horrible look for any leader, let alone one that’s supposed to be in charge of a charitable organization.

In any event, it appears that McDonald will be reimbursed for the tickets. Nottle adds that the Salvation Army will “absolutely learn from this” and that his daughter is just a super fine person.

“The tragic thing is the daughter that’s involved is one of the most giving people I know,” he added. “In this work, you don’t do this stuff for the kickbacks.”

Got it. It was a horrible donation, and the guy that dropped the tickets on us caused us a ton of problems. But my daughter is really great and all.

Color us less than shocked if this is not the last that Nottle hears about this completely avoidable problem. As for McDonald, he’s not going to allow this debacle to impact his sense of giving.

“They do an awful lot of good for people and for the homeless,” he said. “I have been a recipient of their relief so I know how important the work they do is, but the golden rule is never to dip your hand into the donations – it calls the integrity of the entire organization into dispute.”

That’s an outstanding response. Perhaps the Salvation Army of Australia can have McDonald give Nottle a few pointers on the ins and outs of effective communication.